A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys, don't worry, there's more coming :D

The CMC suit kept a count of how many Zerg Jackson killed, but that count would reset as soon as he powered his suit down, something he'd have to do in an hour to let it recharge, so he decided to use a severed 'ling claw to carve a kill count on his left gauntlet. He of course kept an eye on the suit's motion tracker for the whole fifteen seconds of inattention.

He had just finished the eighteenth carving when Heller yelped from her ship.

"Everything okay in there, chief?" He called, stowing the claw in a waist ammo pouch.

The pilot walked out from the frontal ramp, cursing as she went. "Fekking Zerg completely trashed the console! This thing isn't going anywhere."

"Fuck." Muttered Henry before reporting the situation to his superior.

The Sarge seemed to agree with his tactical assertion, "Shit." To some extent.

But a Non-com has to set an example and he quickly caught himself, "I've found some ammo for those gun emplacements, Coldmann is bringing it over. Anything else?"

He asked Heller, who shook her head before ducking back into the ship.

"That's a negative, sir, all clear here."

He glanced about ten meters to the left, where a magma pit boiled and bubbled. All clear and he could still end up deed fried alive in his armor. Goddamned shithole.

A loud bang on the platform, a step behind him, caused the marine to spin on the spot, Impaler at the ready and finger on the trigger, but it was just Coldmann, bringing two massive ammunition boxes for the twin Gatling guns mounted in the center of the platform.

"Oi, any clue how to use these puppies?"

Jackson shrugged and dragged both boxes over to the guns. Similar X marked containers were attached underneath them and they came out easily when he tugged them backward. He inserted the fresh magazines and looked around for a loading mechanism.

All that time, the other marine remained motionless, halfway up the ladder, eyes lost in the distance.

The guns were auto-loaded, a single push of a button and they were both ready to fire.

Henry tried the swivel: all good.

"Sarge, Jackson, turret is locked and loaded."

"Copy that, kiddo, I've got some good news, coming back now."

Henry then turned back to Coldmann, who was now looking directly at him.

"What?"

"There was something on your back just now…"

He turned his head, twisting inside the bulky suit to survey his rear. Sure, his vision remained limited, but there clearly was nothing hitching a ride back there.

Coldmann lowered his visor without a word and climbed back down, as if nothing had happened.

Jackson kept trying to find whatever could have been on his back until the sarge arrived on the platform.

"All clear?"

He hadn't checked the perimeter since Coldmann had climbed down, a few minutes ago, but instinctively answered "Yes, sir!"

The motion sensor confirmed that, and so did a quick look around. The Zerg had no reason to waste any more troops on three marines and a pilot without a ship. They'd moved on.

"So, what's that good new, sir?"

The sarge raised his visor to spit out the stump of a cigar, replacing it with a fresh one he hurried to light. Every marine's kit contained survival lighters, plasma based little devices that would never run out of charge, but the sarge used a wooden match instead and that puzzled the private some, though he kept any question to himself.

"Found a scouting report, here, take a look." Uncertain, Henry took the delicate data slate in his massive hands and surveyed its content over the bottom of his visor. Damn suit had been built for large, bulky men, not scrawny city boys.

Still, he just had to hold the slate a bit higher than he would have without his armor. Small, dumb things like that were what took the longest getting used to.

The report came from Raynor's boys, Spectres, whatever that might be, they found a Nydus network two kliks south and were on their way to grab some explosives about half an hour before the attack. They'd be there any minute now.

"We just need to sit tight and wait for them to get here, then we'll radio for evac and redeployment."

It all made perfect sense, except for one part: "Why not just call for evac right away? Or reinforcement at least…"

The NCO's face stiffened at that and he chewed harder on his cigar, "There's no backup, kid, we're it, everything we have is already out there shoulder deep in Zerg guts." He took a long drag of smoke and blew it out his nose, repeating the gesture twice before resuming his speech, "Sure I could ask for help and they'd probably come running, but they'd have to cut through enemy lines and then they're sure to lose more than just four grunts."

Though he understood the reasoning, Jackson could also have pointed a number of flaws, such as 'why call in when the Spectres get here then?' and 'Shouldn't we at least warn someone?', but that would have incited a longer debate and most likely ended up as a waste of time and energy, so he just shut up and resumed his watch, which the sergeant interpreted as a victory.

A blinking icon warned Henry his suit would soon be out of juice. Higher level CMC armors could last for days, but his was the lowest quality available and lasted only three hours on a full charge. Two hours of sitting around in the cruiser, half an hour of standing around on the planet, that left him with only twenty-seven minutes of juice.

"Hey, Heller!"

The pilot leaned out of her dropship half a minute after hearing her name, "Yeah, what is it?" Clearly, she was in no mood for idle chat.

"Think I could use the ship's battery to juice up my suit?"

She frowned, almost angrily, and ducked back inside.

Jackson gave her the time of a careful sweep and went back to the edge of his platform.

"Heller?" Almost a full minute had passed and she still hadn't said a thing, "Hello?"

Still nothing. He was about to come down to check on her when she walked down the ramp, cursing just like last time.

"What's…"

"Fekking Zerg shit all over the battery, melted the thing down but good."

Henry had seen some intel reports about medevac dropships, solid pieces of hardware, twin vespene-based engines and a lithium battery located deep inside the superstructure to keep the vehicle airborne at most five minutes should it run out of vespene gas.

The Zerg had forced their way through the cockpit, but otherwise left the ship untouched, and the battery was located just between the jet engines, almost on the opposite side of the ship…

The bugs somehow knew that hitting this specific area would cripple the soldiers even further. Smart fuckers…

He reported the issue to his NCO, who actually laughed at that, "Son, back in the confederacy, we had no fancy power armor, we had rocks for ranged engagement, scissors for close encounters and paper as armor, so quit your whining and find yourself en environmental suit in the heal bus… Coldmann, you're on watch!"

…Right. Years ago, on a trip to Tarsonis, Henry had bought a T-shirt bearing the slogan 'I'm With Stupid'. Given the fact he was the only member of the squad who had not undergone resocialization, it seemed such a T-shirt would have been appropriate right now.

Instead of searching the dropship, Jackson went straight to the damaged perdition turrets. The things kept on beeping, though they had been twisted and ripped to shreds. Two out of ten did, anyway.

That meant they still had power and if he could find the power cable and jack it in his NOM adapter, everything would be right as rain…

"God, I hope it doesn't start raining while I'm jacked in." he mused, using his gun's bayonet to sever every bit of exposed rubber he could see. Eventually, one emitted a bright flash, a thick, nylon backed power cable with four rods on the inside. Jackson carefully stripped the nylon and rubber from around the thumb-thick metal wire and jacked all four into the slot, under his armpit.

The flashing icon bitched two more times before vanishing for good. The power levels kept on rising up to seventy percent, where they stabilised before decreasing slowly.

The other turret stopped beeping the moment Jackson pulled the other from his armor. Both had apparently been plugged to the same power source. Lazy engineers.